140 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



known to be annual and heavy bearers of very fine fruit, there- 

 by making trees "thoroug-hbred" and more sure to bear every 

 year, and much finer fruit, is not, in my opinion, a fact. 



It is done simply to catch buyers, and yet, as unreasonable 

 as the statement is, there are many who believe it to be so. 

 Is there any reason for believing- that scions taken from an 

 overloaded, and may be an old tree, or any bearing tree, will 

 make a healthier, stronger, longer lived tree, and one more 

 likely to bear every year finer fruit, and trees more produc- 

 tive, than from scions of the same variety taken from thrifty, 

 healthy young nursery trees. I do not believe there is one 

 reason that will stand the test in favor of such propagating. 



When the New Canaan Nursery was first started in 1849. 

 scions were procured from a nursery in Syracuse to start our 

 Baldwin trees, and all the Baldwin trees grown in our nursery 

 since that time have been taken, year by year, from our young 

 nursery trees. Nine years ago this coming spring, we sold to 

 Mr. C. B. Meeker of Westport Baldwin trees which were 

 grown from scions taken from our nursery trees over forty- 

 five years. I have here a sample of Mr. Meeker's apples. 



The trees these apples grew upon produced last season four 

 barrels of picked apples each, the ninth season from planting. 

 This fruit looks as though it was thoroughly fed, if the trees 

 were not so-called thoroughbred. Could any Baldwins be 

 finer? Would anyone expect or wish a tree the ninth season 

 after planting to bear more than four barrels of such fruit? 



Now it is not that the Baldwin trees Mr. ]\Ieeker had nine 

 years ago were any better Baldwin trees than the thousands 

 and hundred of thousands of such tree we have grown and 

 sold in the past fifty years. It is simply the conditions under 

 which this sample fruit was grown. Any one of the thou- 

 sands of trees we have grown would do the same under like 

 conditions. I know there are some w'ho will differ from me in 

 this last statement. Ex-Governor Lounsbury of Ridgefield 

 bought from our nursery ten Northern Spy apple trees, and 

 when they came into bearing, there was one tree (I heard 

 him say) which bore a different apple from the other nine: 

 that it was a large and different flavored apple. Now I never 

 saw Mr. Lounsbury's trees or the fruit which gre\v upon them, 

 but I will venture to sav if the ten trees were all true Northern 



